The issue is not whether it's a game changer. Apple's game is to build devices, software, and a highly consistent and polished user experience, irresistable to buyers and app developers, all in an effort to capture maximum profit share. Google's game is to build a similar OS that is irresistible to device makers, all in an effort to maximize market share and the advertising revenues boiling off the free app ecosystem.
With Apple, the product is the device and you are the buyer. With Google, the product is you and the advertiser is the buyer. They are each winning their respective games. Superficially they are competitors, but if there is a winner, then there's a loser. How can you look at either company and consider it the loser?
Putting aside the metaphors, Google's growth is not coming at the expense of Apple's profits. Nor are Apple's seemingly perpetual revenue and profit gains coming at Google's expense. They are attacking different problems from very different angles.
With only three or four percent of the market, Apple swallows up more profit share than the largest three phone makers combined (in the neighborhood of 40 percent). That's an astounding number, and it doesn't even include non-phone devices. At the same time, Android had tremendous growth in 2010, inevitably passing Apple in unit sales rate. It's a bit glib to simply say Google therefore beats Apple in 2010. There is nuance, and either company can be painted in the foreground.
Google drove the cost of smartphone OSes down to as near to zero as patent law will allow.
I'd say that is a game changer.
How much does WebM cost?